YESTERDAY

Thursday, Feb. 21

Because I'm still not ready to ride my bike (legs and throat are sore), I'm still taking Steve to work and collecting him after I get off from my own job. It makes a very long day for both of us. Monday, the day after the marathon, I had a scratchy throat again, which became a very painful *sore* throat Tuesday and yesterday. It's about 50% better at most today; this is Day 3 of a sore throat and it's recommended that you see a doctor for a sore throat that lasts 3 days.

When Steve and I left for his job this morning, there was an injured coyote lying in our driveway. It got up and hobbled off to the side of the driveway at our approach, lying down again just a few feet from the driveway. When I got back over an hour later, it had moved away few yards through a fence into an adjacent field, off this property. I called Animal Control to report an injured animal and they said they'd be out.

Then I took our cat, Annie, to the vet, for her first illness in the 14 years of her life. Some kind of respiratory infection. When we put her on the scale it wiggled and she jumped off and grabbed onto the inside my lip. I had to unhook her claw like a fishhook and got a laceration about half an inch long. The vet gave Annie some amoxicillin and I took her home.

The coyote was dead. The groundsworker here had told the landowner that Animal Control was on the way, and the landowner went out and shot it.

Since my throat was still sore AND I now had a cat-claw laceration through a mucous membrane (cat claws dig in cat-poo, ick) at a time that I'm in a generally run-down condition from being sick 2 weeks, running a marathon half-sick, and have a new sore throat, I trekked over to the urgent-care center for the third time in two weeks and was given a new antibiotic. I got the same doctor, who recognized me as the one with the worst case of conjunctivitis she'd ever seen in all her practice. Thanks. She asked how my marathon went. Thanks! I told her I'd run half-sick and she said, "Well, at least you finished." Good answer!!! She gave me a new antibiotic for my throat and my cat-scratch.

Then off to work, where one of my 19-month-olds had a febrile seizure. I'm a nurse, a seizure doesn't freak me out, but it was definitely a departure from normal at the daycare center.

What a wild day. Injured coyote, trip to vet, dirty cat injury, dead coyote, doctor visit, kid with a seizure.

Whew.


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Postscript: Today, Friday, Feb. 22. I'm better, rode my bike to work, taking it easy in the low gears. Annie's respiratory infection is better but she's started limping badly on her left hind leg (like the coyote?) so I'll probably take her back to the vet tomorrow. We haven't heard how the little girl with the seizure is doing. Usually the way it goes is, temp starts going up, seizure starts, seizure stops, kid proceeds normally with the rest of her ear infection or whatever it is. I hope she's OK, and she probably is.

The coyote still lies where he fell in the field. He'd gone through a fence and is technically on the neighboring property so no one from here has moved him and the neighbor, ironically a vet, probably doesn't realize he's there. I guess the buzzards will have to take care of him.

Life is weird.